The crew - atypical of future humanity?

[GodThingFormerly]

^ We didn't even get to see Atlantropa, and this scene of the dry docked E-E passing over the Mediterranean in Nemesis was ideally suited for a throwaway visual. Fudge, Mike Okuda - who was otherwise only too happy to plant mountains of obscure gags and references in his graphic artwork - didn't even bother to depict the project on Picard's workstation in the ST:TNG episode Family. Yeah yeah, I know, "non-canon"....

TGT

 

[FalTorPan]

I'm a member of a Dayton, Ohio-based sci-fi TV/film fan club called Camelot. The club's web site has a message board with a "Futurisma" section. It's gotten very little activity, but it might be a cool place for interested folks here to muse on such things.

Linky, Inky, Winky, Blinky, Clyde and Sue

My screen name on that message board is Greg Arious.

Alternatively, I wonder if there would be a place for Futurism-related topics on this message board.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Hm. Interesting, but seems to go against prior work; for instance, the computer in 'Court Martial' rambling off what seems to be an endless record of merit for Kirk. We've been led to believe at least he is a standout sort of person.

Indeed, the implication is that he's a Standout person in that environment and he wouldn't have fit in on earth. Of course, as far as I am ware, none of those ideas have really been followed up on screen.


I'm particular interested in this?

who seem willing to submerge their own identities into the groups to which they belong.

Group marriage? advanced socialism?

Anyone know - does the idea of Marriage contracts (lasting five years) come from GR or is that from another author (I remember it being mentioned in at least one book).

The contract thing came from the TMP novelization, AFAIK. And the "group" thing was something called the "New Human" movement. In effect, they were psychic Borg, a merged consciousness that "assimilated" each indiviudal's personality and knowledge into the collective.

A really AWEFUL novel called "Triangle" was written about the New Humans. It had a ton if inplied slash, and a Mary Sue major supporting character...

*Edit* I just remembered (I think) that New Humanism was mentioned IN the TMP novelization, which is where "Triangle" got it from. Decker was supposedly a "New Humanist", which is why he was so open to the idea of merging with Iilya and V'ger.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Wow, this is great.

Has anyone ever picked up on this in a novel?

"Triangle"

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I'm a member of a Dayton, Ohio-based sci-fi TV/film fan club called Camelot. The club's web site has a message board with a "Futurisma" section. It's gotten very little activity, but it might be a cool place for interested folks here to muse on such things.

Linky, Inky, Winky, Blinky, Clyde and Sue

My screen name on that message board is Greg Arious.

Alternatively, I wonder if there would be a place for Futurism-related topics on this message board.

The Science & Technology forum would seem like the appropriate place. I know people rarely discuss "soft" science there, but that is the appropriate venue for it, as far as I know.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Decker was supposedly a "New Humanist", which is why he was so open to the idea of merging with Iilya and V'ger.

I think that is somewhat overstating the matter:

"But he had known that the Deltan unity through sex carried a powerful attraction for him, and that it might even shatter the fault-line of his own psyche. Decker was mostly what people took him for: Matt Decker's son. Solid, reliable, old-line Starfleet. But it was his mother who raised the son while Matt Decker roamed the stars - and she had taken their son into the fringes of the new human movement, giving Will Decker a taste for the unusual reward potentials of unity." - Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Gene Roddenberry (Simon & Schuster, 1979).

TGT

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Decker was supposedly a "New Humanist", which is why he was so open to the idea of merging with Iilya and V'ger.

I think that is somewhat overstating the matter:

"But he had known that the Deltan unity through sex carried a powerful attraction for him, and that it might even shatter the fault-line of his own psyche. Decker was mostly what people took him for: Matt Decker's son. Solid, reliable, old-line Starfleet. But it was his mother who raised the son while Matt Decker roamed the stars - and she had taken their son into the fringes of the new human movement, giving Will Decker a taste for the unusual reward potentials of unity." - Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Gene Roddenberry (Simon & Schuster, 1979).

TGT

Don't see how I overstated anything. Matt was exposed to, influenced by, and apparently a beiiever in New Humanist philosophy. Otherwise he wouldn't have been so eager to embrace union with V'ger and Iliya.

 

[Maurice]

Decker was supposedly a "New Humanist", which is why he was so open to the idea of merging with Iilya and V'ger.

Don't see how I overstated anything. Matt was exposed to, influenced by, and apparently a beiiever in New Humanist philosophy. Otherwise he wouldn't have been so eager to embrace union with V'ger and Iliya.

You said Decker was a New Humanist, and, as TGT's quote indicates, he was exposed to it, not an actual New Human as such. As such, I think he was accurate in saying that you overstated it (slightly).

P.S. it's Ilia, not Iliya.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Decker was supposedly a "New Humanist", which is why he was so open to the idea of merging with Iilya and V'ger.

Don't see how I overstated anything. Matt was exposed to, influenced by, and apparently a beiiever in New Humanist philosophy. Otherwise he wouldn't have been so eager to embrace union with V'ger and Iliya.

You said Decker was a New Humanist, and, as TGT's quote indicates, he was exposed to it, not an actual New Human as such. As such, I think he was accurate in saying that you overstated it (slightly).

P.S. it's Ilia, not Iliya.

Thanks for the spelling correction...I can never remember how to spell her name...

As for Decker...whether or not he was a "card-carrying" New Humanist, the quote made it clear he was influenced by and shared at least some of their philosophy, as opposed to Kirk. I think TGT is splitting hairs.

Decker was more like what people back on Earth were (and the type of officers Starfleet was putting out prior to Kirk).

 

[GodThingFormerly]

I think TGT is splitting hairs.

Fine. I concede the point.

TGT

 

[GodThingFormerly]

If I may be forgiven for resurrecting this thread, I am just now rereading for the first time in almost two decades Arthur C. Clarke's 1954 LitSF novel Childhood's End and noticed the presence of "museum cities" and "contract marriages" on Overlord-managed 21st century Earth, both of which were referenced in GR's ST:TMP novelization as well as Jon Povill's aforementioned memo. Coincidence? I very much doubt it, but I am glad that GR - if he absolutely had to steal - made it a point of honor to steal from the very best. OTOH, it is entirely possible that Clarke may have himself liberated those and other concepts from something written decades earlier by his self-stated intellectual progenitors (Wells, Stapledon, Haldane, Bernal, etc.).

TGT

 

[bryce]

If I may be forgiven for resurrecting this thread,

I'm glad that you did resurrect this thread because I love this futurism (and kinda post-human or trans-human) stuff...I think GR's idea of future human society was very fasinating, but - especially after his death - it was pretty much tossed asid, ignored, and/or forgotten about in later Trek, and the humns there had most of the same old hang-ups and taboos and phobias as *20th century* humans.

 

[JoeZhang]

If I may be forgiven for resurrecting this thread,

I'm glad that you did resurrect this thread because I love this futurism (and kinda post-human or trans-human) stuff...I think GR's idea of future human society was very fasinating

I don't think any screen trek has show us anything sensible or realistic about the future especially in regards to how society will develop. Star Trek shows us how rich middle class white people think the future is going to be.

 

[FalTorPan]

So middle-class people are rich?

 

[Orne]

Here's one of those things that annoys me about the series scriptwriters of Trek from TNG onward. (What, none of the story editors could be bothered to read the novel, and at least pass around some cliff-notes?) They were always spouting bitter recriminations that it was so difficult for them to write character interaction because "everyone" was so level-headed and serene, and all the pivotal emotions had somehow been bred out. Then you get a face-full of this from thirty years ago, written as canon yet, that there was a great deal of difference between some StarFleet personnel and the general Federation public-at-large, and that the latter's viewpoints were prevalent among officers like Decker (and possibly Ilia). The writers - who, following his death - no longer had Roddenberry to blame for stonewalling attempts to bring out confrontations between the various characters, pretty much hued to the lets-all-get-along aspect despite the yin-yang social blueprint Roddenberry had laid out in the TMP novel (and, let's say for story-purposes, could have evolved during the century that followed into an overall crisis/arc which may change StarFleet policies on exploration and defense).

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

So middle-class people are rich?

Only the "upper" middle-class, making below $250,000/year.

 

[Darkwing]

I always wanted to see more done with these ideas. Triangle just wasn't enough.

 

[Mysterion]

Anyone know - does the idea of Marriage contracts (lasting five years) come from GR or is that from another author (I remember it being mentioned in at least one book).

I seem to remember something similar in some of Heinlein's work, but damned if I can remeber any specific titles at this juncture.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

I seem to remember something similar in some of Heinlein's work, but damned if I can remeber any specific titles at this juncture.

RAH developed a fascination with polygamy and incest in his later works (Time Enough For Love, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, etc.), but I don't recall reading any descriptions of contract marriages during the comparatively brief period of time when I was actually a fan.

TGT

 

[Gotham Central]

If I may be forgiven for resurrecting this thread,

I'm glad that you did resurrect this thread because I love this futurism (and kinda post-human or trans-human) stuff...I think GR's idea of future human society was very fasinating

I don't think any screen trek has show us anything sensible or realistic about the future especially in regards to how society will develop. Star Trek shows us how rich middle class white people think the future is going to be.

Actually, I think that's because of edict from GR right from the start. I seem to recall that in "The Making of Star Trek" there is a memo from GR stating that it was important that the Starfleet crew essentially be modern humans transplanted into the future. He acknowledged that humans in the future would probably be very different from what was depicted on screen.

In the TMP novelization, don't they mention things like San Francisco being a subterranian city (thus explaining the lack of a city scape in the original movie) and mention things like tamed "wild" animals and tasteful nudity.


I definately think that its too bad that we've never seen a genuine exploration of the utopian social aspects of the Federation.